The Indiana Department of Transportation has a current project that literally goes through my front yard. I live on a two lane state highway and it is being widened to four lanes. Not all of this highway is being widened actually, just a few miles and one of those few miles happens to be adjacent to my driveway. A while back I was researching the entire project on the INDOT website and was disappointed to learn that the project (that was originally supposed to run from Kokomo to Lafayette) had been diminished only to include a section about 2 miles west of Kokomo to the county line (many miles short of Lafayette). Funding was lost or funds were diverted to some other project (the INDOT site was not clear).
I do not travel to Lafayette often (my aunt lives there and there is a nice blueberry farm just this side of the town) but when we do I am often frustrated by this winding state road (i.e. no way to pass slow moving vehicles [and by slow moving, I mean those going 45 – 50 mph in a 55 mph zone]). When this project is over, all we will gain is a nicer ride to the county line (less than 15 miles away [way before the curvy, annoying parts]).
So far the road is not any wider on our end of the project but that does not mean there has not been any activity. For one thing, the first 20 foot or so of our yard is a disaster area with mounds of dirt, large pieces of trees that have been mowed down in the name of this project, and weeds (that have decided that this is a perfect place to start a colony). My neighbors have taken different approaches here. The neighbor to the east has left a 10 foot swath as a no man’s land (i.e. weed colonies) but has continued to care for the area closest to the state road. The neighbor to the west has basically given up and has allowed the weed colonies to have all 20 feet. I have adopted a hybrid approach where the part of my yard east of the my driveway is like that of my eastern neighbor and the part of my driveway to the west is like that of my neighbor to the west.
Most (if not all) of the destruction is due to the utility companies (power, gas, phone, etc) as they have cables and pipes that have to be moved. Sometimes the destruction extends far beyond the 20 foot allotted for the expansion project. The gas company, for instance, tore up the yard right next to the eastern part of our house to update our gas meter (fitted with a cool wireless device that allows the employee to read the meter from the driveway). You can tell they had a backhoe or some large piece of machinery there as there were tracks from the wheels of whatever machine they used.
Another company that caused much destruction was the power company. Their power line poles had to be moved back further away from the road. Rather than moving the existing ones back, they simply ran new ones and rewired everything. This caused us to lose a few more large trees than we wanted (and power for a few hours one day). Two large (like 50 foot tall) trees were the victims of this pole realignment. Not only did they replace those poles, but also the one that is on the front, western edge of my backyard (resulting in more tracks in the yard). Now we can get to the real object of my anger.
When the power company replaced the electrical pole in my back yard, they just cut down the old one and left it in my back yard. Since the pole was next to my fence, they just cut it off at about 4.5 feet (fence height). So I had this “stump” and also a 20 foot pole laying in the middle of my property. This had to have happened sometime back in April. I figured that they (the power company) would come back and finish the job but as April led to May, and May led to June and June to July, the pole (stump and felled part) were still there. Initially I thought that I might just cut this up into piece myself (I had purchased a chain saw to take care of another tree) but I changed my mind after my mother’s boyfriend told me a story of ruining a chain saw (not his, one he borrowed from my grandfather) when he attempted to do a similar thing. I guess there is all sorts of tar and gunk in those poles that can really eat up a chain saw motor. Fortunately I was able to learn from his mistake. I had half a mind to call and complain to the power company but during April and May we had a lot of rain here in Indiana and I did not want to introduce any more heavy machinery to the terrain of our yard. So, I simply mowed and weed wacked around it for months on end. With each mowing, my anger would grow. How dare this company just leave their stuff laying around my yard!
In general I do not give into anger or allow myself to get angry. Perturbed might be a better word to use (but titling this blog “The Object of my Perturbment” did not sound right [plus, perturbment is not a word]). I am an easy going guy, just ask my wife. She often gets angry with me due to my lack of anger or emotion. She is beginning to realize (after 14 years of marriage) that she married Mr. Spock. But even Mr. Spock showed his emotions (maybe once a season) and thus I allow myself to do so as well.
I had myself all worked up but kept putting off calling the power company. I did run through possible scripts for this conversation in my head. Zingers that I would use, perhaps a small speech on how the “little man” is abused by this “big company” and so on. I know I was setting myself up for disappointment in that I would not ever be dealing with anyone who was truly at fault (just some poor secretary or support desk person that was unlucky enough to randomly be assigned my call). I was almost ready to call them (probably after one more mowing). However, this morning a wrench was thrown into my grand plans. The pole (and stump) were gone. Sometime since the last mowing of the back yard they had come and removed it all. It has not rained a lot and it has been hot so the back yard has not been mowed (or visited by me) in probably 2 weeks so I have no idea when this removal occurred. This means that (up to) the last 2 weeks of anger / perturbment (I think this really should be a word) were not needed. Not only did I waste my (once a season allotted amount of) anger, but I was robbed of the chance to use my zingers and scripted speech. For some reason, this perturbs me.
Jon
No comments:
Post a Comment